How Gran Turismo’s picturesque Trial Mountain drifts between fantasy and the real world

EDGE - Sunlight pierces the ragged gap between two avenues of trees lining the steadily climbing road. Trial Mountain’s long back straight is a rare chance to breathe, providing relief after the twists of the track’s canyon section, a rock-walled succession of unforgiving hairpins that will punish careless corner-clipping and scanty braking.

No other racing game elicits such poetic rhetoric. It may have fallen out of favour with critics but nothing else, short of getting behind the wheel of a real racing car, captures the spirit of racing as elegantly as the Gran Turismo series.

I find it very odd that this author is so inspired by this particular track, which I understand, I love this track too though personally I prefer it in reverse......that he would put together this fairly well written little editorial piece that showcases one of the countless reasons Gran Turismo is so loved by real racing fans.......but makes no mention of Nessy, The Loch Ness Monster making an appearance in the GT5 iteration of Trial Mountain. As a GT fan, that's now a huge (though recent) part of Gran Turismo lore.

I was expecting a paragraph about it after he talks about the turn after the back straight, but it never came. I respect his passion for GT but the author should hang his head in shame as a Trial Mountain fan. LOL

One thing I've always appreciated about GT5 is that it's one of few games where I've really felt like I got my monies worth, and then some. They really did pack an utterly insane amount of content and features into that game.

They all have their flaws, especially if you nitpick but they are all really good; and that's a feather in the PS3's hat to take on all of the PC games and compete so well.

One of the advantages GT5 has over a lot of it is that it can run at it's best and do a smooth, flick-free 60fps at 1080p. Granted, that's probably one of the few advantages but it's a nice one when you want to lose yourself in the game.

Compared to PC racers I don't think it's the 1080p 60fps that is it's advantage, since if you have a decent gfx card all PC games run smoothly v-synced at 1080p 60fps. I think it's the whole package with GT5, the attention to detail, the amount of content, the feel of it, at least to me this is what still makes me come back and play it.

"The game still renders at native 720p with 4x multi-sampling anti-aliasing (MSAA) when your XMB is set to 720p mode, while the resolution shifts to 1280x1080 with 2x quincunx (QAA) when the 1080p mode is engaged."

The anti-aliasing is also dropped down to 2x when you run it at 1080p mode from the 720p mode which has 4x anti-aliasing. It also is not locked at 60fps. In fact the game runs below 30fps in certain instances.

This isn't an attack on the game. As I said, it's the most technical advanced game available on current consoles. But watch me get disagrees just for pointing that out, further supporting the notion that anytime you say anything against a very supportive community will instantly get you blacklisted. Which ironically enough means they are voting against their own since I have GT5 and enjoy it very much.

The PC has many racing games people are unaware of. Some are technical marvels but they don't get the attention a game like GT5 does.

Where GT5 should get more credit than it does is the support. It is an entirely different experience now than when it was first released. That is why reviewing games early has its disadvantages. There is a lot of content for your money here.

I am PS3 and PC gamer.. and I still prefer GT5 over other simulators... those tracks and cars do have a soul in it somehow... I still recommend to try PC simulators as they are more complex in a way (they can focus on specific racing category), while GT5 has everything it needs to feel real race car or road car control on racing track.. it seems that GT series will have a very bright future ahead and it is evolving slowly but in the end is purely awesome for those who love cars and driving...

I want an EL XR6. Be cool if they asked us what cars we want in GT6, and people could buy the ones they wanted (more of a dream, unless they can scan cars and put them in the game quickly and efficiently).

Love GT. Own every one. Still remember the Dodge viper and Corvette from GT1. Plus the epic sound-track.

I still play this masterpiece weekly. No other racing sim gets this kind of praise. GT5 has sold over 9 million copies for a reason while all of the copy cats can only manage to sell a fraction of that. Bow down to the King of racing sims.

I liked GT5 a lot but it got old really quickly with the lack of community features. Forza 4 was the total package for me personally. Great feel, auction house, ability to sell custom tunes, online drag racing, custom paint jobs etc. Really no comparison if you like to piddle for hours.

...mostly not race. For all of those features, I can't see myself spending more than thirty minutes per month using those community features, but again, that's your preferences, not mine. Hopefully I'll start to get into that myself because it sounds like you have fun when you use that.

GT has never been about customizing your cars. It's also never been about "community" features.

It's about the driving. And there's no game on console- and few on PC, I'd say- that expresses it better than GT5.

That's what people love about Gran Turismo, always has been. Feel free to dick around on Forza all you want; if that's what you're looking for in a racing game, GT isn't the series for you.

But if you want the most complete driving experience you can get- not only racing, but DRIVING- then it doesn't get any better than GT.

... except when GT gets better.

If you'd cared to read the article, you'd have seen this difference: the author goes on in detail about how it feels to DRIVE. I may be wrong, but I can't recall ever seeing an article about just DRIVING for Forza. It's about how beautiful the game is, or how great it sounds, or how much you can customize.

But not about the DRIVING.

In fact, just reading the article makes me wanna drive. Not race. Not customize. DRIVE.

So yeah, you're gonna get disagrees. Not for what you prefer, but because you dare to believe that GT not having something it's never tried to have somehow makes it boring. Like getting mad at Chuck Norris movies for not having enough romance in them.

What you guys don't realize is that Forza is all about racing too. Just like GT. The community features are just a plus. Why else would you be able to do things like buy and sell custom tunes? Or have an auction house to sell cars? By having features like this it enables you to do even more racing. And when I said piddle I meant piddling with a tune for hours and hours trying to get it just right. So you can take that tune and sell it to buy other cars to " race ".

When it comes to racing games it is all about the driving and the physics everything else is secondary. The reason I will always choose gran turismo over any other driving game is that I know that the physics and handling will have been the developers main priority not "community features".

If you don't think Turn 10 puts car handling and physics before everything else you've never truly driven a wide variety of cars. Ranging from high horsepower AWD cars to high horsepower RWD cars that can break loose really quickly. In GT5 it feels like youre either full throttle or no throttle at all. Theres just not as much control at all speeds as there is in Forza. You guys don't know dick about a cars real world handling. All you know is what you read on the internet. Most of you anyways.